From my trip to Ethiopia – Danshaha city and the (-)5 stars hotel of our accommodation.

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Some times ago early morning I read breaking news on Twitter about the failed coup attempt in Ethiopia’s Amhara region. I really worry about the future of this lovely to my country and the people inhabiting it, and even right now the situation is under full control, I remembered our visit to this area and two night we spent in Danshaha – a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia, located just 50km from the southern Sudan border, and around 60km from Eritrea.

Our stay in Danshaha was histericaly memorizable. On the way there through Gondar and Soroca village (Tigray’s southern border with Amhara runs in the middle of Soroca village), we were almost rapped by the criminals, who manage the roads between villages after dark comes. And the village’s militia tried to stop us on our way to Danshaha, were we supposed to get there before midnight. Well, the end was happy, and we fell in love with the -5 stars local Hotel (i don’t remember the name of the last), despite the fact that it was in the early stage of construction, smelly, dirty and dark. But we felt like at home after the long and fast drive through the African forest with the road devoid of any lighting. Our driver drove the minibus on the maximum speed and minimum possible for this dark road light with the goal to cross the reminded 30km unseen by the angry people hunting the night.

The only convenience of every room of this “hotel” was a ceiling fan, that was spinning at one particular speed and the only way to sleep in this weather condition was to open a little bit the door of the room, which also was not too safe, so I pulled a heavy bed to the door and stuck it in a third of the way. Yes, the mosquitos felt free to go inside, but not the two-legged night visitors.

As compensation for this, we got absolutely tasty food during these two nights of staying there. We arrived late at night and left for the shooting early in the morning, so every day we had a late dinner and early breakfast. Our fixer brought his friend – a very young man and absolutely gorgeous cook, who contrived to prepare such a variety of tasty dishes in these conditions without gas, kitchen tables, mixers, and oven. Don’t ask me, but the kitchen you can see in one of the images below. Even 3 vegan members of our team were satisfied as well.

And in the conclusion of this post and on the last morning of our stay here, at 6 AM I climbed onto the roof to inspect the surrounding area and to take a few images from the top and I found this “demonstration” on the road at the entrance to the city. The number of people and the loud sound of the big Kebero was unusual for this time of day and put me in kind of shock, so and I hurried to run downstairs to see what is going on outside. But this part of my story from Danshaha I will continue next time.